Been playing this game for ~3 months now. My thoughts so far

[Atoli]

Tome gear is supposed to be farmed over a long time. If you want good gear fast but at the cost of high difficulty, go raid.
There has always been 2 options to aquire gear in FFXIV, the hard way through raids (alex savage, for now, coil back in ARR) OR the slow but sure way of collecting tomes every week and eventually saving up enough to buy gear.
Now if you complained that there is a loot limit on raiding as well, THAT I could totally get behind..:3

I won't argue about story as that is a matter of taste in the end. I personally cared very very much about the things that happened during 2.55, and when you arrived in Azys Lla, while the thing at the end of The Vault just made me feel..guilty? For not feeling sad and crying as I should have, because I didn't care that much about that character. But I heard about any "I care/do not care" combination possible from all kinds of people, so..yeah, not really one can argue about.
At least to me the FFXIV story is tied for best MMO story with Mabinogi, and totally on par with other Final Fantasy stories too.

[Exidrial]

People keep telling me that savage is extremely Hard.

From what i can tell there are two ways of getting gear. Slow and easy or fester and really Hard. Where is the Middle ground?
Even gearing from 200 to 215 is really easy because hullbreaker Isle Hard mode is not Hard at all.

Looks like i'll have to get Into raids

[Exidrial]

I'm on the Phone right now and can't find a way to edit my previous post.

Take a look at TESO. The game's Story isn't great but the World feels alive. The World has a Story and sidequests enforce it.

Why doesn't SE make use of the world more?

Have to get off the phone

[LunaFaye]

I do agree with most of the post. A lot of changes have been implemented from 1.0 all the way to 3.x and it doesn't look like 4.0 will be any different. I do enjoy the game don't get me wrong, but taking a lot of breaks lately since this daily 2 dungeon roulette is very boring. I don't raid at the moment but have in the past, it was utterly disappointing compared to the old raids aka coil. It isn't so much even the content that's not interesting but more the people that are new to the game. Most of them have no patience or can't be bothered to even show up on raid night. Others wont take criticism and wiping 2 weeks to the same mechanics is something they call fun and don't see the need of improvement. I do enjoy running most content nowadays via duty finder or even the raid finder, loved the idea of that and hope they gonna work on it in the future. But pretty much avoiding PF and Statics or FC's in general. I think it's both nowadays, the lacking content/difficulty and the new/temporary community. Most veterans left or switched to gathering/crafting, as well as just logging in once a week for reset.

[Berethos]

I'm on the Phone right now and can't find a way to edit my previous post.

Take a look at TESO. The game's Story isn't great but the World feels alive. The World has a Story and sidequests enforce it.

Why doesn't SE make use of the world more?

Have to get off the phone

I've played both quite a bit.

ESO doesn't really do much different when it comes to its main story and side quests, except to have voice work for everything. They both even introduce you to the main bad guy(s) almost immediately, though in Elder Scrolls fashion it gives you a lot of information early on and then puts them on the back burner for a while, whereas FFXIV shows you an Ascian almost immediately but takes its time building to revealing more and more about them over time.

Clearly the story here didn't click with you much, if at all. That's fine. Own that opinion, acknowledge that it is yours...

But remember, just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is bad.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Ascians not important? Last time I checked they were the ones who were responsible for Bahamut becoming a primal and being captured inside Dalamud. And you know since the opening to this game is Bahamut literally blowing it up while the Garlean and Eorzea Alliance battle it out underneath. So, I wouldn't say in the slightest that neither the Garleans or Ascians aren't important in the slightest bit.

[Obysuca]

>_> Do I dare bring it up? Yeah, Imma do it~!

There has always been 2 options to aquire gear in FFXIV

And only two options. No variety. Either Raid or Expert, both of which get replaced so theres no variety and we're back to only two ways to gear. There could be more options, but SE loves giving outdated gear on release (dungeons, 24 man raid etc).

It'd be semi-better if let's say, next tome gear is 250 for example, dungeon gear could also be 250, just a slight variation in stats and the next 24 man raid could also be 250. The tome gear could be slightly better so people don't just gear up in dungeon gear, but not overly better to the point where dungeon gear is obsolete on release and they can also use said dungeon gear to have some progression and also gear up other jobs, which is the point of being able to play all on one character. The way things are now, they're wasting time/resources to even make dungeon gear since its a good 20-30+ ilvls lower than the free handout tome gear, or even the current 24 man raid.

With some horizontal progression, it'd also give people a reason to run the current dungeons more than once a day, since they'd have a chance at getting some gear they can actually use and not be totally gimp on another job while they save up tomes or try to get the 24 man raid gear. With the way updates are spread out and how the 24 man raid comes at a time when you've pretty much fully geared 2 jobs in tome gear, they could even make that gear slightly better than tomes, so again, you can still get something.

Not saying it will, but it could also help with the problem of people being extremely undergeared in content with dps checks, causing the pt to fail over and over (bismarck ex for example), if they were able to get on right when an update came out, get a few pieces of the new dungeon gear and have a base set to do the new content.

You could even copy/paste that progression for hardcore endgamers too(all in one update, expert dungeons and savage dungeons). For example, also release a set of savage expert dungeons, with let's say, 260 ilvl, thats not too difficult, but you'd actually have to be geared to do it, no lazy carrying people. From what I've seen, thats a problem with savage progression, people trying to do it in weaker gear. Notice how after a few months go by and people have more tome gear, you start seeing more people progress in savage? If they had that base set of savage dungeon gear, they could progress further in the raid etc.

Midcore people could also join in on that too. Start on update day, grab a few of the expert dungeon pieces, know your job and how to actually dodge etc (which is actually extremely hard for some people...), then try tackling the savage dungeons. Boom, problem semi-solved, it'd give people more things to do so they don't quit until the next update. More money for SE.

But you know, that'd mean SE would actually have to put some effort into the content they release in XIV >_>

[Limonia]

I agree that there should be multiple ways to get gear for your characters, not only 1) extremely easy or 2) being forced to have a static and always be available at specific times.
But it would already be very nice if it'd be possible to gear up multiple classes at the same time. If dungeon gear would have been ilvl 230 and Weeping City gear ilvl 235 or so... Or, at least, make it that there are more than 2 expert dungeons again. People already hated it when there were only 3. But now there are always only 2? >_<


About the story, I think that it's quite ok. Not the best in the world, but not bad either. The characters become more likeable with later quests. And the Ascians seem to be the main villains to me. They are always somehow included in what's happening.
The only problem with the story is that because you make up your character, your character, as a person, can't really be involved in what happens and will only ever be "some adventurer", even as Warrior of Light. They made that better with Heavensward but it can never really be like a story where the main character is chosen by the person who writes it.

If they decide to do some dpsing then consider it extra but do not expect it. I main healer and I do not DPS, if I wanted to DPS I would play my DPS job not healer.

So, then what are you doing in a battle as a Scholar besides standing around? Not attacking you here, I just want to know. ^^

The problem here isn't that healers in normal dungeons are expected to do maximum dps all the time or so (even though some people would surely demand it). It's that it is just unfair to the other players in your party when one player, the healer, does almost nothing all the time - or overheals like crazy to hide that he actually isn't really doing anything productive. And no one is talking about new players that still have to learn or doing more difficult content for the first time.

So, as a SCH in a dungeon, because of the fairy, if I weren't doing dps, I would have to either spam Physick not to be idle or... be idle.
And if I were to cast Adloquium and Eye for an Eye on the tank and Virus on the enemy, it would only lead to me being even more idle because the tank would take even less damage so I would have even less to do. Or I throw in some dps spells. As an extra.
And I really get a little bad conscience if I don't cast something for like 2 seconds because I thought the enemy would die before I finish my cast anyway but it didn't. I hate doing nothing while others do the work in the dungeon. xD

[Etrock08]

As far as lore goes. 2.0 was pretty good about setting up HW. Your entire Coerthas western highlands experiance in 2.0 leveling is all about ishgards war with the dragons, they were set up as baddies well before HW. We head to Ishgard because we are temporary outcasts from the plot of ARR due to being framed for an assasination plot. We are doing mediocre tasks at the start of HW because we are simply trying to fit in. Once we team up with Estinian is when we start a full story. The Ascians are still pulling the strings behind most of the events, they are not just a plot device, but HW didnt want to fully focus on them since all of ARR was focused on them.

[Exidrial]

Another thing about the gear...
What's the point in upgrading your i200 gear to i210?

I did hullbreaker isle hm 3 times now and already am i210.
4 more pieces to go and I'm full i215.The only thing that seems to be worth upgrading is the weapon as there doesn't seem to be an i215 one.